8 million concurrent YouTube views for the man who jumped out of space

If you thought you had a hectic weekend, think again! Yesterday, Felix Baumgartner of Austria, became the first man to the break sound barrier and shatter all records by doing a free-fall jump from the edge of space. He jumped from a capsule over 24 miles above the earth, reaching tremendous speeds of 706 miles per hour and then opened his parachute to float down to the New Mexico desert. You can relive the event in its entirety below:

As if this feat wasn’t enough, Baumgartner also broke a second record; the live stream for this event broke the record for the most concurrent views ever on YouTube! At the peak of streaming, there were more than 8 million simultaneous viewers – that’s over 10x more than the previous holder of the record.

The jump was sponsored by Red Bull, perhaps not in a bid to test the ‘Gives you wings…’ theory, but they certainly got a lot from their tie-in with the event. Following Baumgartner’s landing, Red Bull posted a picture of the daredevil on his knees, to Facebook. Unsurprisingly, in less than 40 minutes, the picture went viral and was shared over 29,000 times and generated nearly 16,000 likes and more than 10,000 comments. If only every brand could sponsor such an event, getting ‘Likes’ on Facebook would be ‘easy’.

In the lead up to, and even during the jump, Twitter saw half of its worldwide trends occupied by tweets relating to the jump. Everyone from celebrities, to actors, athletes and corporate executives were tweeting about the death defying stunt.

Congratulations to Felix Baumgartner and everyone who made today’s jump possible and a success!

Social news website, Reddit also saw two threads related to the event make the front page, as over 29,000 users weighed in on a thread about the jump and another thread about questions for Baumgartner.

Another event which was captured across social media, proves to be an ingenious way to entice the world and undeniably promote your brand…unfortunately not one that we can all implement. We still can’t say Red Bull gives you wings, but Felix Baumgartner certainly got close to this feeling!

Oh and because who doesn’t love Lego? Check out this Lego recreation of the jump: